Incredibly Tragic News About a Wonderful Blogger
I just now learned that Jon Swift has died. I’m typing those words and I can’t even believe it.
The great Jon Swift has died. That’s the “blogging” angle to a personal tragedy. In reality, the voice of Jon Swift – the hilarious faux conservative blogger whose talent and passion were evident in every post – belonged to Al Weisel, a sweet and good-natured journalist who happened to be the college roommate of my once-and-future collaborator Jason Chervokas.
I knew Jon’s blogging (I can’t call him Al; I didn’t even know his real name until now) from my own earliest days as a blogger. He was a contributing writer at Shakesville at the same period of time that I was. Jon ran an annual blogging event designed to raise awareness of less-well-known bloggers; he would ask other B-listers (like me, with my blog Liberty Street) to contribute what we felt to be our best posts for that year, and add other lesser known but well-deserving bloggers to our blogrolls.
If this post seems a little disjointed, it’s because I am just absolutely felled by this news. I can’t believe it. I know it’s true, but I just can’t believe it.
Jon was so young and so talented and such a fine person. I can only hope his family and other loved ones find strength to carry on without him, and some sort of peace, eventually.
Rest in peace, Jon. You were very special.
7 Responses to “Incredibly Tragic News About a Wonderful Blogger”
I'm glad you wrote something, Kathy. Thank you. I've been trying for hours, but can't get the words together. I can't even imagine how his mom is dealing with the pain of losing her husband and her son almost at the same time.
He was a great gift to the blogging community (not to mention his fantastic Amazon reviews!!), and he was also a friend to me for years. He gave encouragement, reached out when I fell into sporadic blogging funks, dropped fun notes randomly, laughed at my poor attempts at satire (his fault!) — just a fabulous person.
Heart-breaking.
NO!
I didn't even know about his Amazon reviews.
He put up a post specifically for them, since it turned out that Amazon wasn't possessed of quite enough good humor to keep them all.
Jon Swift's Complete Amazon Reviews
I finally managed to get the words out that I needed to, btw, at my own blog. What a terrible loss.
I loved his writing. May he rest in peace.
it turns out al was a prolific journalist, as well as being jon the brilliant blogger. here's his real life webpage.
i never knew him in real life but i considered him my friend. i am devastated.
My sympathies to his family.